Going VOIP - losing the landline

[Cudzoziemiec]

People will always want to talk to each other, so there will be telephony of some sort, be it over copper wire, tin cans and string, or whatever the internet morphs into. It might come with or without video, tactile and olfactory elements.

[Kim]

People will always want to talk to each other, so there will be telephony of some sort, be it over copper wire, tin cans and string, or whatever the internet morphs into. It might come with or without video, tactile and olfactory elements.

Sure, but voice-over-PSTN (and with it, the PSTN itself) is Shirley on a collision course for obscurity.  Though it will no doubt linger on well past its obsolescence in some of those afore-mentioned bureaucracies.

Prediction: The NHS app will at some point provide a voice call function, in order for ill people to sit and listen to their GP's hold message at 8am.

[Mrs Pingu]

It does seem pointless, I have no wish to deal with anyone by phone (I'm not sure why so many organizations insist on me calling them, surely doing it asynchronously is more efficient for both me and them), I gave up recently with HMRC on account there was no wait time <40 minutes and wrote and mailed a proper letter (how much is a stamp these days!) since there seemed to be no other way to communicate with them. I say communicate, this assumes they ever respond. Ironically, the correspondence is about a cheque.

They have a chat bot which, if you tell it you need to speak to an advisor, will put you through to a person to exchange messages with.

[ian]

It does seem pointless, I have no wish to deal with anyone by phone (I'm not sure why so many organizations insist on me calling them, surely doing it asynchronously is more efficient for both me and them), I gave up recently with HMRC on account there was no wait time <40 minutes and wrote and mailed a proper letter (how much is a stamp these days!) since there seemed to be no other way to communicate with them. I say communicate, this assumes they ever respond. Ironically, the correspondence is about a cheque.

They have a chat bot which, if you tell it you need to speak to an advisor, will put you through to a person to exchange messages with.

Hmm, I didn't seem to get that option (I was trying to get them to reissue a cheque and check my tax code – it just kept sending me back to the tax code page, which misunderstood the problem that yes, I can do this, but then they change it – not a biggie, it ultimate all gets addressed when I do the self-assessment).


Still, I'd hazard that if you've a waiting time of >40 minutes, pushing people towards phone enquiries isn't really working.

[hellymedic]

I use voice telephony to speak to my aged Mum around six times per week.
I sometimes need to speak to a Real Human. I rescheduled D's dental appointment yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to try to get Sainsbury's to link my Nectar card to my groceries account, as they seem to have come unstuck.
They previously linked OK but I can't seem to resume a broken link.
I prefer the ergonomics of my landline handset to those of my little dumbphone.

I suppose I'm a Luddite...

[Syd]

I gave up my landline in 2004 when I moved home and went with the local cable company for internet only. Then, in 2010 I moved home and cable wasn’t an option so I had a telephone line for internet but never had a phone plugged in.

I then moved again in 2017 . My current ISP is fibre to the premises and offered me a telephone on VOIP. I declined having never used a landline for so long but I always know, if it ever becomes the case, I can have one on VOIP.

[Mrs Pingu]

I decided to read some stuff on this, this evening. Then I lost the will to live and gave up.

[chrisbainbridge]

I decided to read some stuff on this, this evening. Then I lost the will to live and gave up.

Ditto

[Lightning Phil]

I now have the phone over internet. The old landline phone now plugs into back of router. As a result no longer pay a landline charge , which was about £10 a month.

[hellymedic]

BT has just sent an email, reminding me to set up my new hub.
I really don't want to do this until it's daylight and David has the spoons to check all the outhouse peripherals.

I reckon I'll also have to involve the alarm folk and phone them.

There's still no sign they're actually activating Digital Voice.

[rafletcher]

It could be (ok, this is BT so who knows…) that they’re waiting to see your new hub on line before activation. 

[ian]

I decided to read some stuff on this, this evening. Then I lost the will to live and gave up.

Ditto

This is generally my motto.


On other matters, I'm pretty sure I read that the standard burglar alarm call-to-base doesn't work. Doesn't bother me much, as I never had it put back after the refurb, I figure that if the box on the front of the house isn't deterrent enough, any burglar will be gone long before any security service service turns up (and about a week or two before the police).

[hellymedic]

It could be (ok, this is BT so who knows…) that they’re waiting to see your new hub on line before activation.

This has crossed my mind.
Point is I have a mobile for voiec calls and setting up the hub's unlikely to be trivially simple, which 'they' don't appreciate..

[Kim]

Yeah, it seems likely that they're waiting for a SIP registration from the hub before re-routing the incoming calls.

[jiberjaber]

I've still not heard anything since getting the email 30 Oct.... must have forgotten about me!

We contacted you recently to let you know that we’re rolling out our new home phone service – Digital Voice – in your area. And we want to let you know that you’ll be switched over within the next 30 days.

[hellymedic]

I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…

Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?

[rafletcher]

I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…

Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?

Not that you'll be swapping routers regularly, but it might simplify matters if, in future, the peripheral equipement was connected to a separate mesh network. Then it's only a matter of changing the single connection 'twixt mesh and hub.

[jiberjaber]

I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…

Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?

I do but it's more complicated in that I don't use a BT Hub at all (I am still on the standalone ADSL modem) - the router I do use serves static IPs to my astro gear so I just need to arrange for whatever BT provide to act as a dumb pass through.  I might ditch the VOIP as absolutely no one other than spam calls our landline and I only have it because you used to have a copper line for the internet - I'll deal with that once it's in else I will just get bounced on to a new contract with them!

[hellymedic]

I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…

Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?

Not that you'll be swapping routers regularly, but it might simplify matters if, in future, the peripheral equipement was connected to a separate mesh network. Then it's only a matter of changing the single connection 'twixt mesh and hub.

I think some of D's equipment is on some sort of satellite hub. He's still off-colour & not really up to going out in the cold, damp drizzle.

Still mo switchover...

[Kim]

I do but it's more complicated in that I don't use a BT Hub at all (I am still on the standalone ADSL modem) - the router I do use serves static IPs to my astro gear so I just need to arrange for whatever BT provide to act as a dumb pass through.

This is by far the more sensible approach, not only because it follows the proven networking principle of use as little BT as possible^[1], but it means you maintain full control of things like DHCP and firewall rules, have more scope for doing WiFi properly, and aren't at the mercy of stupid bugs in the ISP-provided hardware^[2].  Nobody wants to have to re-structure their network just because their ISP has sent them a new router with different default settings.


_{[1] Kenny, P.  2002
[2] Even Virgin Media seem to be able to manage a router that can work reliably in bridge mode.}

[Feanor]

I'm not really sure what the shutdown of PSTN means for me.

If you are a BT customer for both BB and phone, that's easy: they shift your number onto their SIP platform and give you a hub which has an ATA and everything 'just works' (for certain values of).

But there will be other customers who have a BT landline with a voice service, but a different ISP, so no BT hub or whatever.
I'm in that situation.

Will BT provide a SIP service I can log into using my own hardware (Asterisk Box / IP Phone / ATA / whatever) over my 3rd party ISP to continue my voice service on my landline number?
Or provide a pre-configured ATA I can plug into my existing LAN?

It's not clear to me.
I feel a visit to the IRC AAISP channel coming on.

[Kim]

For a while the future seemed to be ONTs with an ATA in them, with or without battery backup, but that seems not to be happening (our ONT just has the PPPoE port).  It's certainly a good question.

[hellymedic]

Another email from BT reminding me to set up new hub by the end of the day to stop me losing my phone.
Seems like it will happen tonight.
Will get printout of old hub settings & leave this till tomorrow...

[chrisbainbridge]

Can you not keep the old hub with all its settings but link it to the new hub?

[Kim]

Can you not keep the old hub with all its settings but link it to the new hub?

I expect so, but you'd have to reconfigure it, and then you've got two points of failure and twice as much power consumption in order to save you from *checks notes* ...having to do some reconfiguration.